Most educated people, health professionals included, accept that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and that high cholesterol clogs arteries leading to heart attacks, impotence, and strokes. Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, says the correlation between animal protein [intake] and fracture rates is as strong as that between lung cancer and smoking.

The Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study, which included over 57,000 women, found women who consumed the most calcium from dairy products had almost double the rate of hip fractures compared to women who got the least calcium from dairy

Research into world dietary patterns show that places where people devour large amounts of calcium (United States and northern Europe) also endure the world’s highest rate of fractures from osteoporosis, the disease characterized by weak, porous bones.

Doesn’t research into world dietary patterns produce circumstantial evidence?

Yes, but think about this… My friend’s doctor told her that she would eventually get cancer from smoking cigarettes unless something else killed her first. She quit so we may never know if her doctor’s prediction was true. However, I don’t think anyone doubts that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer in smokers, sooner or later, as the case may be. I’m also certain that few well-read, educated people doubt that high cholesterol causes your arteries to become clogged, which leads to impotence in men and heart attacks or strokes in men and women, unless something else kills you first. There have never been any “double-blind” scientific studies for smoking or cholesterol. But compelling circumstantial evidence does exist which most educated people, including health professionals, accept. The correlation is there. “The correlation between animal protein [intake] and fracture rates in different societies is as strong as that between lung cancer and smoking,” says Cornell University’s Dr. Campbell. Take African Bantu women for example. They average only 350 mg calcium per day. They also average the birth of nine children each whom they breast feed for two years. Yet they never suffer from calcium deficiency. Osteoporosis is almost nonexistent, even in women over 65 years of age. Or take the Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study, which included over 57,000 women. It found women who consumed the most calcium from dairy products had almost double the rate of hip fractures compared to women who got the least calcium from dairy. Why is this? Ask Mark Hegsted, another doubter that milk prevents osteoporosis. Hegsted, retired Harvard professor of nutrition, believes we get too much calcium.